Semiconductor materials such as silicon and gallium-arsenide are commonly used to manufacture integrated circuits for use in electronics. These integrated circuits typically have many transistors that are used as building blocks for larger circuits such as amplifiers. A commonly used performance measure for amplifiers is the “gain-bandwidth product.” The gain-bandwidth product describes an inverse relationship between gain and bandwidth above a certain operating frequency. In other words, amplifiers with a large gain-bandwidth product can amplify signals at higher frequencies than amplifiers with a small gain-bandwidth product.
The gain-bandwidth product of amplifiers is influenced by many factors, including the underlying semiconductor manufacturing process. For example, an amplifier circuit manufactured using one process may have a higher gain-bandwidth product than the same amplifier circuit manufactured using a different process. This may be problematic in situations where an amplifier designed using a process that supports a high gain-bandwidth product is shared with designers that desire the same amplifier performance, but use a process that does not support such a high gain-bandwidth product.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for alternate amplifiers.